


1 D0n'7 Kn0ww

by sophiabell01



Series: SUPERHEROSTUCK [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/F, F/M, Kurloz will forever be Carlos in Sophia's mind, M/M, Superheroes, greetings, hi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-04-14 13:03:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4565646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiabell01/pseuds/sophiabell01
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Homestuck Superhero AU.<br/>The Alpha and Beta trolls are nemeses, and through constant fight, they keep the city in balance.<br/>But something (or someone) tips the scales.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Aradia

**Author's Note:**

> There will be a title eventually, but this is the title of the document we are working on.  
> Also I am awful at writing summaries.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey, Emily here (CarrierKittensAndMuffins)  
> Darling Sophia wrote this chapter, as she will write half of them!  
> Thank you!

Chapter one: Aradia  
Alone, that is the key word here, alone.  
I was standing alone in a forest, my home after my team abandoned me.  
I was knocked unconscious and chucked an abyss, from which I eventually escaped to find the forest I currently live in. My powers are the only thing that help me survive. From getting out of the abyss to having to fend for my life, it was the only thing I could count on.  
I am one of the two rust blooded people on the spectrum. The other one is my nemesis Damara. We both happen to have quite similar powers. Those powers having to do with time and space control and telekinesis. We also shared the same fate when it came to our families we are both orphans. Surviving off the streets, and coming to the Gl’bgolyb Memorial Building when our blood colors changed. Damara made enemies there while I made friends.  
Now looking around all I can remember is my time at Gl’bgolyb Memorial Building building friendships and allies only to be torn down by them later. We were a team of twelve, a great one at that. I had amazing friends while there. Some of my good friends there where Sollux, Tavros, and surprisingly Karkat. We were the warmer colors of the spectrum, which may be why we got along so well.  
But as I said before, they abandoned me! I was ALONE!  
They used to care about me! They WERE great friends! I used to be able to sympathize with them but I can’t, I JUST CAN’T ANYMORE. I thought Karkat cared about me, he was the leader, HE COULD HAVE SENT PEOPLE TO LOOK FOR ME, BUT NO THEY JUST FLAT OUT ABANDONED ME! I CARED ABOUT THEM! I HELPED TAVROS WHEN NO ONE ELSE CARED, I LOVED SOLLUX WITH ALL OF MY DAMN HEART, I HELPED KARKAT WENT PEOPLE DIDN'T TAKE HIM SERIOUSLY. I HELPED THEM! I TRIED! Maybe I wasn’t as good as a friend as I thought I was.  
But no.  
THEY are at fault  
THEY are the awful friends, the awful people, the awful heroes who hide scared behind masks of heroics.  
I know how to fix this.  
It may end in disaster.  
But who doesn’t want to watch the world burn.  
\------------------------  
The Plan.  
The Plan to make things right.  
I had to seek out Damara.  
Hard to believe I know but she understands how I feel. She knows what it’s like to be betrayed. Being betrayed is like a stab through the heart, that will never heal. It hurts, alot. Then you feel like you can trust no one, EVER again. You feel like you're going to explode, a ticking time bomb if you will, with each tick you get closer to exploding. I am a ticking time bomb, ready to explode.  
You have to know a lot about your nemesis. What their powers are, what there goals are, what makes them tick, Damara is a ticking time bomb, but she was far from exploding. So, she needed to pushed. Who better to push her then her nemesis.  
Seeking out Damara was not that hard. I know how to sneak around areas without being seen, but stopping time and being able to talk to her may be a battle of its own. She can also stop and start time. That maybe a problem. If she keeps starting time when I am stopping it, that will most like result in a rip in the space time continuum. Thats not as fun as killing your enemies your self! I stopped time and looked around, Damara must be really freaked out, the whole city thinks I am dead and when I stop time she keeps moving. This could end with her attacking me but I can stop before she does. Damara suddenly appeared in front of me. She gave me a confused look, then a surprised look, and then an angry look. She lunged at me. I expected this. So I quickly ducked and came up behind and put her in a headlock. She began kicking and screaming, then after shortly realizing there was no one else who could hear her, she calmed down.  
“I thought you were dead!” Damara exclaimed.  
“And for good reason, you can't tell anyone I am alive, no one or else, I will personally kill you.” I smirked at her.  
“Why are you doing this?” She asked. “All will make sense in due time dear Damara,” I replied. She gave a puzzled look but looked intrigued. “I heard of the hardships with your team, Rufioh cheating on you, Meenah making fun of you, doesn’t it make you feel like you're not wanted?” I said. Damara nodded, “Well I have over heard them, I am just going to say it, they do hate you, think your not important etc, I have a plan my dear friend. A plan to get revenge, a plan to get revenge for everything they have done wrong to us, are you in?” I asked, she looked like she was considering it, I was hopeful. After a minute she finally replied hesitantly “I’m in.” “Great!” I replied, “Let's get going so I can explain the plan,” we began to head back.  
I still have a lot of work to do to fully convince Damara to be on my side, but I know she will come around. As walking back to the forest Damara says “So this is where you have been, how did you survived? I bet most people would be dead if they were out here as long as you have been missing!” “You learn how to survive but powers help a lot,” I replied. “Yeah, you and I have some pretty useful powers if I dont say myself,” she said. I nodded, “Yeah, they can be really useful.” We walked in silence for a little while after that. “We actually get along quite well when we are not fighting,” Damara said. “Yeah maybe we won't be such a bad team after all,” I said, and with that we walked off.


	2. Tavros

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter two: Tavros [Also known as exposition]  
> Greetings.  
> This chapter is by me, Emily (CarrierKittensAndMuffins)  
> It should be a little while before the next chapter (Sophia's again), but hopefully my world building explained it a bit more.  
> Okay! :)

I’m not the best hero.  
Some would say I’m not a hero at all.

My powers, aside from the regular hemospectrum advantages, are pretty limited, and useless in a number of situations. Had it not been for the help of a few others, I would get my ass handed to me constantly by my nemesis, Rufioh.

Heck, my blood didn’t even shift until about sixteen, far later than my friends.  
I, like many of the kids in the city, had stopped checking years before for the other-than-red smear in my blood, so it’s likely that I missed it early on, only catching it when the orange-brown began to tint my skin rather than the natural color. Even then, I had thought it was some kind of infection, or bad tan, that is, before I “fell” out of my wheelchair onto pavement, brown and red pooling from my useless legs and skinned hands.

After I realized that my blood had changed, I went to the Gl’bgolyb Memorial Building in the heart of the city, looking for some kind of guidance, I guess?  
They had laughed at first, a cripple, a civilian, come to the home of the powered?  
Preposterous.  
A blue-blooded girl, who I later learned to be none other than Vriska Serket, the “Gr8” Spinneret Mindfang, had suggested quite forcibly that the doors be closed to all “Candy-reds”, and Why is he even here? It’s not like there is any reason?  
I’m not a very outgoing person, which I’ve been told will be my downfall. Though is there really that far to fall?

I bled my fair share that day, not only for the ounce they needed, but any time that someone had returned to the grand glass tower, and questioned what the the boy in the wheelchair was doing there. No one was quick to believe that there could be a handicapped hero, so the Olive cat’s claws tore repeatedly at my skin to let out the heterogeneous brown-red slurry. It didn’t hurt much, and healed quickly due to my developing hemospectrum advantages, but it would be a bit of an understatement to say I felt a bit faint that day.

I like to think that I fit in well there, even if I did feel like a bit of an outsider purely because of how little time I had been a part of things, compared to others. Aradia, the rust-blooded adventurer, was particularly nice, teaching me to fight, and attempting to get me to stand up for myself. She has been missing for a while though, through some mysterious circumstances. I had been unconscious around the time that she disappeared, suffering from an illness a number of us contracted.  
I was also good friends with Nepeta, the cute role-playing cat girl. In school, I had been a part of a few RPG clubs, so the two of us had a bit of a common interest, even if on totally different sides of the spectrum. She, however, didn’t live at the tower, as a few of us did. She lived in an apartment with Equius about three blocks away, coming to Gl’bgolyb Memorial only every odd day. Nepeta and Equius were an odd pair, choosing to mostly fight and associate alongside one another. I wasn’t quite sure if it was romantic ties or not, though I was leaning towards not just because of Nepeta’s odd fascination with Karkat.  
All the others were nice, if a bit erratic. I didn’t get to see them often, and the majority of them were usually fighting, but it was still okay? They were all very busy, powerful people, so it was completely normal for them not to drop in for a few weeks, or months. Vriska, Terezi, Aradia, and I were the only people who used the tower as a home, them because their families were non-existent and me because my family situation was steadily getting worse. None of us saw any reason to leave and get our own places, so there we stayed.  
I spent the majority of my first year training, using the powers that had to be in me somewhere, and figuring out my strengths, if there were any. Aradia was the best teacher, especially given that she had been training for many more years than I had. Vriska, despite the fact that she seemed to hate my guts helped a bit, by making daily life a living hell. I would thank her, but that may only make it worse.  
My powers, as we discovered in a freak accident, had something to do with wind, or air. Sollux, while having a not-so-rare argument with Eridan, had gotten caught up in the moment, with yelling and screaming, and the beginnings of psionic energy and white science. Eridan had dove into the large pool taking up a good portion of the basement facilities, and Sollux had followed, powers sparking and reacting badly. That, and Sollux could not swim to save his life. Literally.  
Rather than anyone roaming the facilities having to give CPR though, I went into some kind of blur I don’t remember, and in the end, Sollux was fine.  
Eridan said something like “You wwere up in the fuckin air all of a sudden, and then so wwas Sol’s limp body, and then there was some kinda bullshit goin on.”  
No one else was really watching.  
With Aradia’s help, I learned to use them to my advantage, lifting myself up in the air to go places, rather than be confined to my four-wheel device of restrictions and misery. I also figured out a way to control my lance using the winds, and just in time, as that’s about when Rufioh started wreaking havoc.

Now, to our knowledge, or so Kanaya says, there is one “Hero” per “Bad guy”. She uses the quotations, or implies them with her tone, though I am not entirely sure why. I've heard her girlfriend go on and on about morals and perspectives and things I don't quite understand, so I just assume it was something in that realm.  
The two of them have done some extent of research regarding nemeses, and from what I’ve heard, there were far from few theories about the concept. What I really know though, in it’s most basic form, is that Rufioh is going to keep doing bad stuff, and I’m going to keep saving the day, or everything’s going to hell. Lalonde had made it clear that it was “Very precariously balanced,” and that “One little thing could tip the balance dramatically and could very well result in things like manufactured acid rain melting skin into liquid if you aren’t careful.”. Kanaya’s girlfriend kept you on your toes, but simultaneously scared the shit out of you.

Rufioh, it seemed, was all I was not. A confident social butterfly (wings and all), who was strong without even having to try. Why the world decided that he was a good match for me, I will never know. All I know, is that it’s my job, and I have to at least make some kind of effort. Thinking about liquid skin helps with the motivation.

So yeah. I could try. Even though trying didn’t always work.  
Maybe one day it would.  
Maybe one day I could be the hero I imagine.  
Until then, we’ll see.


	3. Sollux

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was written by me Sophia, who knows there may be a drawing of Sollux's room later, it would be located in the next part of this series, there will eventually be a collection of buildings, rooms, outfits, scenes, and other things. Also the posting after the next one will be at a slower pace, and an even slower pace once school starts. It will probably go down to twice or once a week after the next one, and most likely once a week or biweekly ((once every two weeks)) and I will most likely put when the next one will be up in the chapter before that one) once school starts. I will try to prepare extra chapters but there is an order which it would not make sense to go out of. So enjoy this chapter!

Chapter three: Sollux

As soon as I got home, I knew something was wrong. Looking around my apartment I put my car keys on the counter and took a step back. There were huge maroon gears on the walls, “What the actual fuck!?!” I yelled. Looking around there were about 20 gears, two on every wall. I took my phone out of my back pocket and began to text Karkat.

twinArmageddons started messaging carcinoGeneticist  
TA: look at thiis 2hiit  
TA: 

CG: WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?  
TA: ye2 my though2 exactly  
CG: WHY ARE YOU FUCKING TELLING ME TA: becau2e ii wa2 wondering iif you had any fucking iidea on how 2 get riid of thiis  
TA: on 2econd though, KN would know more about thii2  
TA: thank you for your oh 2o helpful help  
twinArmageddons stopped messaging carcinoGeneticist

I began to text Kanaya 

twinArmageddonsstarted messaging grimAuxiliatrix

TA: look at thii2 2hiit

TA: 

GA: What Is That?  
TA: ii dont know  
TA: ii wa2 wonderiing if you knew how 2 get riid of iit  
GA: Where Did You Find It?  
TA: ii walked iin to my apartment and thiis wa2 all over the fuckiing wall2  
GA: Any Signs Of A Break In?  
TA: no  
TA: that ii2 the weiird part  
TA: nothiing el2e wa2 wrong  
GA: Ok  
GA: I Found This  
GA: Here  
TA: FUCK  
TA: ii have to paiint over iit?!?  
TA: god dammiit!  
TA: fuck iit  
TA: ii am ju2t goiing 2 leave iit  
twinArmageddons stopped messaging grimAuxiliatrix  
GA: Youre Welcome?

Well, that helped a lot. Maybe I have some of that paint left, I thought to myself.  
I went down into my garage to look, of course I had none left. Just my fucking luck! I trudged up the steps to see Bees looking at me straight on. “Bees, what the fuck are you doing?” He just hissed at me. “ Your stupid,” another hiss. “Your an idiot,” I said. He somehow out of nowhere he gave me a puppy eyed look. He is a fucking snake, I don’t think snakes usually do that. His tiny red and yellow face looked at me again, with those same goddamn puppy eyes. “How do you do it Bees,” I picked up my scaly friend. It was a gift from Aradia, when we first started dating. I reluctantly took care of him, and have grown accustom to his douchiness. He became pretty adorable after a while. I had to deal with Aradia’s “I told you so” speech after that. I put him back in his snake terrarium thing. “Don’t escape again, you hear me, I have my eyes on you.” I said as I walked away backwards. And of course I had to trip on the FUCKING coffee table. “ See what you did Bees, see what you did,” I said from the floor. I got a text message from Karkat

carcinoGeneticist started messaging twinArmageddons  
CG: BRING A GEAR DOWN TO THE BUILDING  
TA: iit2 on the wall, how do you expect me 2 get iit off the wall?  
CG: USE YOUR FUCKING PSIONICS  
TA: fiirst off ii am not demolii2hing my wall2  
TA: 2econd off ii am not carriing a fuckiing wall down the 2treet  
CG: JUST GET DOWN HERE  
TA: fiine  
carcinoGeneticist stopped messaging twinArmageddons

I started to head down to the building with the name no one can pronounce.

“What did you want, I have to get back to let Bees out,” I said.  
“I thought we were done with the whole bees thing!” Karkat replied.  
“We are,”  
“Then why the fuck do you have bees?”  
“Bees”  
“What the FUCK are you talking about?”  
“Bees. Bees the snake,” I said  
“Let me get this straight. You have a snake, named Bees? Who the fuck names their snake Bees. You could of picked a normal name like, like, Carlos or something.”  
“Why would I name my snake after Gamzee’s nemesis?”  
“Its Kurloz. I think. Probably. Most likely. But why BEES?”  
“Why don’t you go ask Aradia! Oh wait, SHE ISN’T HERE!”  
“Dude, we are looking for her-”  
“NO YOU AREN’T IF YOU PUT EFFORT INTO IT MAYBE WE WOULD FIND HER!  
“ Sollux, calm dow-”  
“I WILL NOT FUCKING CALM DOWN I- I- FUCKING LOVED HER AND SHE IS GONE!”  
With that I was storming down the street in pure furey back to my apartment. I heard Karkat call after me. I slammed the door shut and grabbed Bees out of his cage. He was all I had left of her. “I love you Bees,” I said. He hissed back. “Oh be quiet, I am trying to have a moment with you,” I chuckled. I looked up at the clock, it was 11:30 at night. I should probably start to go to bed, I thought to myself. But fuck sleep! Sleep is for the weak. Why not stay up all night and code. I put Bees back in his cage, and headed towards my computer. As I turned on my computer, I started to think back to when our team got along better. It was weird, when Aradia was around we all got along moderately well. Eridan and I not strangling each other every five seconds, Terezi and John weren't arguing constantly, Karkat wasn’t as stressed and yelling 24/7. She was like the glue we didn't know we needed. But my computer turned on, the glow of the screen blinding me for seconds. Once my eyes adjusted, I decided to code c#. I opened up Visual Studios 2015, and began coding. The next time I looked at the clock, It was 4 am, “Shit!” I yelled. Knowing myself I would only sleep for two hours before my brain was like, _wake up fuckass I am going to make your day even shittier by having you run on 2 hours of sleep, good luck!_ My brain is a piece of shit, smart, but still a piece of shit. Bees was staring at me again. “What are you looking at?” He stuck his tongue out. Sometimes you really want to strangle that snake. But he is a snake. He could strangle you back, if he was bigger. And smarter. Ok so maybe he couldn't strangle you back. I looked him in the eye. "What am I going to do with you?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if the ending sounded a bit rushed,


	4. Kanaya

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *in a spooky voice because im cool like that* ooooooooh look a new chapter! This was written by Emily of CarrierKittensAndMuffins. I, Sophia of sophiabell01, uploaded it because of coding. Next is Karkat, but I have a very busy couple of weeks ahead plus my birthday (12/13) so please be patient. But yet again I seem to have more hours in the day than all of my friends. So, no clue when Karkat's chapter will be out. Have fun while there is a chapter! *no more spooky voice*

Early morning sunlight slowly crept over my face, turning the insides of my closed eyes a green tone. The sun was so warm.... And the bed was so nice... Alas, my eyes burned with the fury of a thousand suns, so staying where I lay was out of the picture  
“Rose?” My voice was scratchy, as it often was in the mornings. I turned out of the glare of the sun, slowly sitting up and blinking my eyes open.  
“Yes Kanaya?” Rose stepped into my blurry field of vision. I blinked several more times, until at least my eyes had recovered from the ordeal of sleep  
“Tea... Please.” Rose, who was already dressed and evidently ready for her day, smiled sweetly, what I could only gather to be a knowing look on her face.  
“On the bedside table next to you. Come out when you’re ready?”  
I nodded, and reached for the tea, swinging my legs over the side of the bed in the process. The tea was in one of the larger mugs, filled near to the brim with the dark liquid. A tea bag still bobbed at the top, the string sticking to the side with condensation, meaning that Rose had awoken later than I had first thought.  
It had become habit now, as she had to get up earlier, for her to make me my tea and our breakfast, so that even though she had to rush out in the mornings and I had a tendency to come back late, we could spend time together. That had been the entire point of us moving in together, hadn’t it? Time was a precious thing, and you shouldn’t mistreat it just because it was easy.  
I forced the hot liquid down my throat, barely savoring the peppermint flavor in favor of not burning my tongue to ashes. This was my source of oh-so-necessary caffeine, not from some bullshitty coffee, so I should be actually waking up soon. I hope.

I stood up, dizzy due to the fact that this was my first major motion in the hours since I laid down to sleep. The floor was generally cold to my bare feet, though there was rare occasion when it wasn’t. I closed my eyes, and just breathed for a second, the warm tea in my hand, and the sun still beaming down across me.  
Yes. This was how it should be. This was nice.

My phone, dressed in some grim-colored case that Rose had recently made for me at some arts-and-crafts get together, was buzzing on the glass near the liquid circle the cup had left behind. Though the buzzing wasn’t good for the glass, especially not with this new case, I was forced to keep it this way through the night, or my phone would be creating a symphony of shrill dings and irritating beeps.  
I absolutely detest group chats.

twinArmageddonsstarted messaging grimAuxiliatrix

TA: look at thii2 2hiit

TA: 

GA: What Is That?  
TA: ii dont know  
TA: ii wa2 wonderiing if you knew how 2 get riid of iit  
GA: Where Did You Find It?  
TA: ii walked iin to my apartment and thiis wa2 all over the fuckiing wall2  
GA: Any Signs Of A Break In?  
TA: no  
TA: that ii2 the weiird part  
TA: nothiing el2e wa2 wrong  
GA: Ok  
GA: I Found This  
GA: Here  
TA: FUCK  
TA: ii have to paiint over iit?!?  
TA: god dammiit!  
TA: fuck iit  
TA: ii am ju2t goiing 2 leave iit  
twinArmageddons stopped messaging grimAuxiliatrix  
GA: Youre Welcome?

Poor Sollux. He had been on edge since Aradia’s disappearance months ago, and it just didn’t seem to be getting better. I was still slightly uninformed on the whole situation, but he had been frantically searching for and worrying about her location and well being for as long as he had been recovered from illness. He was quite lucky that Mituna was, at least currently, incapacitated, or half the city would be in ruins. 

“Kanaya?” I emerged from the comforting yet worrisome land of thought and began to walk towards the kitchen where Rose surely awaited. “Kanaya are you planning on coming? I do need to leave soon, and I have-” I ambushed her from behind, snaking my arms around her neck and pulling her a bit away from the counter where she stood.  
“Hello.”  
“Hello indeed.” Her laugh was like a windchime caught in a hurricane, a mess of beautiful sounds.  
“So what did you make this morning?” She motioned with her head to a bit behind me, so I navigated our mess of a hug a few degrees, bringing the stove into view.  
“It’s not much, just some scrambled eggs and I was thinking-”  
An obnoxious ringing, the sound given to our mutually-owned singular home phone so that we couldn’t miss it, cut Rose off, leaving just an exasperated look on her face.  
“I’ll get it” I untangled myself from our... Rose, and walked across the even chillier tile to our little table, where the old phone resided. 

“Hello? Lalonde-Maryam residence, Kanaya speaking.”  
“Hey, Kanaya?”  
I knew that voice. Scratchy, mostly from the constant yelling, and evidently Karkat’s.  
“Hello Karkat.” I sighed, which may or may not have carried over the awful phone speaker. “Any particular reason that you need to contact me this early? Unless there is some legitimate danger I’m not sure I’m going to do anything.”  
“No... Well... I... Fuck, Okay, so have you heard about Sollux’s gear thing? He made it sound like he would contact you.”  
“Yes, Sollux texted me earlier regarding the gears. Is there anything else that I need to know, or can this wait until I come to the building at noon?”  
“Fuck, no, but do you have any idea as to what we should do?”  
I chuckled. “I did tell him to paint over them...”  
There was a muffled scream on the other end, as well as more than a few profanities, though that was the norm with my Karkat conversations, so I decided not to worry much.  
“NO! THERE HAS TO BE FUCKING *SOMETHING* GOING ON WITH THEM! THESE THINGS DON’T JUST FUCKING HAPPEN. CAN’T YOU GET YOUR SMART ASS GIRLFRIEND TO CHECK THEM OUT?”  
“Rose is very busy Karkat, as am I. If there is some villain activity going on, you could always call a meeting, but due to the collective busyness of all of us, I would suggest just getting a look at the gears first. Maybe have Sollux bring one in?”  
“Okay... Okay.” He sounded calmer, which was always a good thing.  
“I’ll talk to you later, when I come in for lunch, okay?”  
“Okay...”

I pulled the phone away from my ear, clicking the little red button and setting it back on the stand.

“Karkat, I presume? I could hear the yelling from all the way over here”  
I grimaced.  
“Yes. I ought to go to a doctor one of these days, and get my hearing checked.”  
“Definitely. Eggs?”  
Rose held out a ceramic plate with some scrambled eggs, and a small uneven triangle-shaped piece of toast thrown nonchalantly over the top. Despite all of her elegance with words, darling Rose was still a bit of a lot of a mess. Not that I wasn’t as well, which apparently wasn’t people’s expectation of either of us. It did lead us to not have many people over to our apartment however.  
I glanced over at the green tinted LED stovetop clock, and was startled by the time it displayed. 7:58? Already? I must have woken later than expected, for it to already be this time. 

“Rose, dear, would you mind greatly if we ate downstairs in the shop? I have to be open at eight, but I don’t think it will affect much, so if you don’t wish to...” I trailed off, not wanting to impose on her, especially given that she had cooked breakfast this morning rather than setting out the milk and cereal. 

“Of course. It is an advantage to living above where you work, is it not?” She paused, an expression of thought evident in her features. “That is, when you own your shop. However, we’re not too far from the memorial building, are we?” 

“No, no. Perfect distance. I wouldn’t want to be much closer anyway.” I walked back around the counter, and reached the front door easily due to the small dimensions of our apartment. The front door wasn’t much of a “Front door” as one’s front door would traditionally be, but due to the fact that no one else lived in the building, and the only way to the apartment was up the stairs through the shop, it was just a door, with the regular, easy-to-open lock. I opened it inwards, and held it open as Rose gathered a few things. She could and would easily make the journey back up here before she left for work, but she enjoyed having some kind of reading material or puzzle of sorts for us to work on over our morning meal.  
She walked through, motioning with a slight tilt of her head for me to follow, so I stepped out of the way, careful not to let the door slam too loudly.  
The stairs were definitely older, as could be figured by the weathered look and the discolored line down the center, from years of people shuffling up and down. It was a habit persisting from my childhood to could the stairs as I descended, so even though I knew there were exactly 16 steps, and had known since approximately my second day of living in the building, I counted, one, two, three, four...  
My shop was small, but filled with things, all kinds of dresses and different clothing options, ranging from my latest project of a blue-sequined prom style gown, to a number of black coats, the original which I initially had made for Rose, but after her getting numerous compliments, and people asking where she purchased it, she recommended I make more. It was an interesting business to be in, but a quite fruitful one.  
Rose plucked the dish out of my hand, setting it on the counter where hers already sat. The food was still warm, and letting of a small trail of steam, making it look even more appetizing to my already hungry brain. I reached out to the fork that Rose had luckily grabbed (saving one of us a trip back upstairs), but she batted my hand away, giving me a stern look, that which one would typically give a five year old when they had forgotten to wash their hands.  
“You need to actually open shop, do you not? I’ll set up the cash register, you get the mail, and open the door.” I nodded briskly, snatching the keys from a hook behind the counter, and walking through my displays to the glass windows that were the front of my shop.  
The door was the easiest, just undo the door chain, and slip the blue-marked key into the lock, twist, and push. I then flipped the switch on the back of the pastel-colored OPEN sign, and headed out the door.  
After the glass section of the shop ended, there was a short section of the building that showed the brick of the rest of the building, and this is where the mailbox specific to the shop lay. It was in the wall, with a slot for request papers to go in, and a lock, allowing me to open it and extract the contents. There were hardly ever any requests in there, maybe two or three per week, because customers would usually come during business hours to converse with me about their request. However, I made it practice to check it every day, as not to let anything slip past.  
The key for the mailbox was marked green, but this lock was much more irritating than the newer door lock. It was older, and had suffered some wear and tear, leading to me haggling with it every morning, struggling to open the box. I twisted the key back and forth, jamming it in, teeth grinding as I scowled, upset with its incapability to open. Finally, after pushing, shoving, and close to screaming, the box slid open as if nothing was wrong. I sighed with relief, prepared to shove it closed automatically, when a deep maroon-colored envelope caught my eye, pressed up against the side of the box. I retrieved it, and shoved the box back in its place, hearing the click of the automatic lock before going back inside.  
Letters that looked like this were typically good, the fancy envelopes, nice paper, and sometimes personalized stationery indicating that a person was wealthy and usually wanted some expensive thing. This letter however, as became apparent as I opened it, walking back inside, was nothing of the sort, just the bare minimums of an order filled out, and a small prepayment contained. It was an order for two marron cloaks, in a style that was typically more popular in the time of Halloween, and not mid August.  
“Are you alright?” I must have looked as puzzled as I felt, for Rose to be questioning it.  
“Yes, yes, I’m fine,” I assured her. “However, I may have to run over to the memorial building, so would it be fine with you if I skipped out on breakfast this morning? I need to check some things.”


End file.
